Design Analysis of an n-Bit LFSR-Based Generic Stream Cipher and Its Implementation Discussion on Hardware and Software Platforms

Pseudorandom numbers are at the core of any network security application. Also, security of satellite phones and cellular phones depends heavily on the pseudorandom numbers generated. In the network security domain, its use is particularly in key generation, re-keying, authentication, smart-phone security, etc. Also, current research shows that satellite-based telephony system, having GMR-1 and GMR-2 algorithms for secret key generation is prone to attacks. The algorithm A5/1 used in GSM technology is also cryptographically poor. Hence generation of strong sets of pseudorandom number is needed. These random numbers are produced through a pseudorandom number generator (PRNG). This generator in general terms is called a Cipher. Hence, if there is a flaw or the PRNG produces predictable sets of random numbers, then the entire application would be prone to attacks. Therefore, development of a generic framework for generating strong sets of pseudorandom numbers is proposed. The proposal aims to build an in-general framework and a unified model for enhanced security specifically for LFSR-based stream ciphers. The proposed generic model uses results from the above case study. For the hardware deployment, Spartan-6 FPGA toolkit is used and for the software part a parallel computing platform namely CUDA is used. The model is aimed at development of a framework which generates strong sets of pseudorandom numbers for its use in various network security, satellite and cellular applications.